Archive for the ‘Barwell Motorsport’ tag

Ecurie Ecosse, the racing team that wouldn’t stay down, has followed its 2011 revival with an announcement that the team will make “a full-time return to top-level international sportscar racing” in 2012. The team intends to compete in the Blancpain Endurance Series and the Avon Tyres British GT Championship with a BMW Z4 GT3, with an eye toward returning to the scene of its greatest triumphs: Le Mans.

Two-time British GT Championship winner Barwell Motorsport is running the racing program, which is being sponsored by Fiskens, a London-based dealer in historic automobiles. Team boss Hugh McCaig, who revived Ecurie Ecosse once before, in 1983, maintains that the team is ready for this step. “We … believe, with the combination of BMW’s Z4 GT3 and guys at Barwell, that we absolutely have the right ingredients in place to achieve success. We also have a team of ambitious and talented young drivers who have shown their commitment to this programme through a tireless effort to put the deal together in an extremely challenging economic environment.”

The first two contests of 2012 for Ecurie Ecosse will be the opening round of the British GT Championship at Oulton Park on April 7-9, and the launch of the Endurance Series at Monza on April 15.

Ecurie Ecosse (“Team Scotland” in French) made its debut 60 years ago, in the 1952 British Grand Prix, with co-founder and Edinburgh accountant David Murray driving a Cooper T20. Every single Scottish F1 champion, including the late “Gentleman Jim” Clark and three-time world champion Sir Jackie Stewart, has raced for the team.

The squad’s greatest achievements were its back-to-back outright wins at Le Mans in 1956 and 1957, beating the works teams of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche and Jaguar. Ron Flockhart and co-driver Ninian Sanderson won in 1956, behind the wheel of a Jaguar D-type, and Flockhart repeated the feat the following year, with Ivor Bueb as his co-driver. Sanderson and John Lawrence finished second in another D-type, making this a rare 1-2 finish by a privateer.

In more recent years, Ecurie Ecosse became the first private team to beat the works racers in the British Touring Car Championship, driving Vauxhalls to victory. Largely dormant since the 1990s, the team returned to competition in 2011 at the 24 Hours of Spa in an Aston Martin DBRS9, finishing 20th overall and ninth in the GT3 Pro-Am class.